I'm a big PC gamer myself, and I don't think it will be dying anytime soon. I really do believe that the large hardware requirements are the main reason why Crysis didn't sell as well as they hoped. I mean I'm going to guess that between 10-15% of PC gamers have the hardware required to play the game like it should, so this excludes a huge player base. We are also assuming that the 10-15% are even interested in Crysis. Take a look at companies like Blizzard for successful games. Their games are always AAA titles and look good, but at the same time they find a balance between performance and visuals. Their games are very well optimized for their potential user base, which is pretty much 100% of the market. I do feel bad about the piracy rates though, as I would love to pick up Crysis and help these guys out, but I'm still playing on a single core AMD 3500 and I just don't want to hear my PC scream in pain.

I don't think PCs will ever completely fade. There are some game that were went to be played on a console such as command and conquer. Personally I like playing fps on PC because I believe it is easier. That and a new moniter cost about half what a new TV cost.

And for the record I have never pirated a game.

I can guarantee you that you don't know a person that has as many bought PC games as I have (I have three stacks, each a foot high, of PC game CDs -- not jewel cases, but loose CDs, as well as two boxes of jewel cases). One could say I'm an avid PC gamer. I also own a variety of consoles, frrom the NES to the Genesis to the Sega Saturn to the Wii. I'm also an avid supporter of piracy and own a fair collection of burned games. I downloaded Crysis when it came out because I heard of how steep the requirements were and I wasn't going to shell out $50 for a game that might not work on my computer. Lo and behold, it ran like crap despite my best efforts, so I uninstalled it. Good thing I didn't pay $50 for it, doncha think?

Way back when it came out, I downloaded a game called Unreal Tournament 2004. My friends and I enjoyed it so much that I went out and bought it the very next day.

The fact is, in a world in which we're not constantly being antagonized by publishers to buy games and not to pirate, the purpose of piracy often becomes as a means to try things out before you blow $50 on it. For a now-University student that is perpetually low on cash, to buy a game and have it not work (my computer meets the minimum requirements for Crysis, btw) is simply unreasonable. But if it works and it's good, I have no problem spending $50 for the game. Simply put, I think the publisher/dev of a game do have an obligation to me, as a consumer - the product I consume should at least be worth what I paid for it; if it's not, then they have no reason to **** about me pirating their game (and the gaming world would likely be better off without them), and if it is, then I'll have no trouble paying for it.

I gota agree. Myself and my friends have always been PC gamers above all else, and in the past 3 years nearly all of us have concentrated our gaming on the more dynamic, evolutionairy and fun world of console gaming.

I think piracy is a large factor for those blockbuster titles. PC gaming is probably changing direction rather than dying for me, with casual games and social/MMO games at the forfront, but i definetly think the glory days of Half Life, Deus Ex, Theif, Messiah, Giants: Citizen Kabudo, Grim Fandango and many more, is dead.

And it is genuinely sad.

Great read man.

man... you need to understand that piracy is not a problem, its a rule of nature....

people pirating a game, would not have bought it in the first place.... how often do I have to rwrite this sentence...

if a studio has to close, it does not happen cause of piracy, but either the game was bad or the market situation was not like the puplisher or studio expected it to be...

so they simply make misstakes and misjudgments... if a game fails on the market... developers should be happy that the game is played and spread nevertheless CAUSE of, what you call piracy...

its an living environment and that studios are closed does not mean creative minds and ideas are lost, they are just migrating somewhere else

and just because everyone wants to make big money, they should not wine about "piracy" on the PC plattform... just because the Crytec dudes cant cover there cars and boats with pure gold, it does not mean Crysis was a flop, it was a big success and the best game in this century...

keep your mind clear and dont be manipulated by commercial mass propaganda....

greetz

It has gotten progressively harder to pirate games. In the time of Half-Life, Deus Ex, Giants et al pirating a game was as simple as downloading it. And yet, PC gaming magically survived. The reason why PC gaming is dying is not because of pricay -- if it was, nobody ever would make games for the PSP -- but because it's a significantly smaller market than console gaming and everyone knows that.

I can see a future where the PC as we know it will be gone completly. The PC would be turned into something like a console of which it has standerdized hardware and file sharing networks will be no more. Of course, this would have drastic affects on the industry. Piracy would be at a much lower rate, but it would be much harder to distribute large files for those unable to afford the bandwidth. As for computer upgrading, it would be like with a console. Instead of having a new graphics card every few months with direct X updates etc. It would be once every few years a new system build would be released, just like a new Playstation is released.

Sparticus247: yes indeed, you are right to bring up Blizzard in this, however I feel a lot of developpers will take this knee-jerk reaction of Crytek. I'm not saying it's our duty to buy stuff we can't play, crytek is partly to blame for their hardware requirements. I'm just saying it's not going to look that way to the people deciding where to invest (when piracy is rampant) and that buying Crysis a little later, a little cheaper, and when you can afford the hardware is in my opinion just as good.

brokenpike : I'm sure they won't fade, but if you compare it to what they used to be in, say, the late 90s, it's undoubtable they are being pushed to the sidelines. While a cracking FPS is fine and good, it's a future lack of genres besides RTS/FPS that worry me.

Me2NiK : I might be able to take you on in regards to your PC collection. As shocking as this might sound, your logic is completely valid to me. If you've downloaded to see what it's like and tried it out, no problem at all. I used to do it myself but have stopped because I have such a backlog that I've enough to play as it is. While it's a grey area, I don't think that can even be considered piracy as you're basically using the product as a marketing tool. Think of yourself as a E3 behind the scenes booth or something. You'll get no complaints from me.

dannyodwyer: rattling off a list of premium titles like that just goes to show how far PC gaming has fallen. Shame.

hitomo : how many times do I have to hear it? That's a common justification from downloaders. That they wouldn't have bought it anyway. As if this somehow proves that this is an item they could live without, yet constantly play. In reality all it proves is they're cheap. How many games do you have to play through (free), how many hours of entertainment before you start to feel you just might have bought it? Maybe you could buy it when the price goes down, but are you so tight as to not give a few bucks for the hours of entertainment you got? You're right in saying that the creative minds migrate somewhere else, but what if they run out of places to migrate to? I don't mean they won't have a job, it's that some "market analysis" freaks will tell them that so and so many innovative games have not sold well and as a result we're going to be focusing on FPS and RTS games now. Can't you see it's happened already? You probably don't mind, but I lament the fact that all that's basically available now is FPS, Tomb raider ****action adventures, and RTS.

Me2NiK (again ): It's a similar market for many reasons, no doubt, but I don't think you can argue piracy hasn't had any type of impact on it. After all, it's a business. And a business is based on returns. If a certain dev team or genre is not bringing them in, you cut your losses and continue with what is making money. So every few bucks count. We could argue that the main problem is dumbing-down in all entertainment industries (name 3 original movies that came out this year), but in this age of console rule, I think it's important to at least prop up PC gaming as much as possible.

WizzyKid: an interesting thought, certainly. It sure would make it easier for people to pick up and play games. Ironically it's the diversity in the PC world that hinders it...

I can't agree more that cutting edge graphics aren't the be all, end all of gaming. Possibly my favourite game of all time is "The Longest Journey," and that sure as hell doesn't have "cutting edge" graphics.

I think it could be said that good graphics are a selling point however, and perhaps this is what the Crytek representative was driving at. If you consider all the speculation about GTAVI making so many hundreds of millions of dollars in it's first week, it is not so hard to imagine a situation where games, like blockbuster movies, will "flop" if they don't sell instantly.

nyamibob : indeed. And, like blockbusters, a lot of the inflated production costs are down to graphics (or special effects, in the case of the former).

The console and the PC will never be the same thing, its a different form of gaming. I have to say that the PS3 and the 360 are not really like consoles in my opinion, more like hybrid computers. The breed of games being released on them are becoming increasingly the same. And the PC market seems to have gone down the pan. It's like all current PC games got released because it came out on a console. It feels like theres no effort being put into the market any more. I am thoroughly disappointed.

PC gaming will never die until the PC as we know it dies. Shareholder led companies of course would love a world where every title is $60.00. Developers have full artistic freedom on the PC to do whatever they want. They don't have to submit their game to MS or Sony or NIntendo to approval. The PC gives you the best, richest experience for a particular game whenever it is released across multiple platforms. I look at games like Mass Effect and Assassin's Creed and LOVE this new business paradigm of releasing first on consoles - they are the beta testers for PC gamers. Just wait to see how much better the PC version of GTA IV with all the added content along with a cheaper price to boot will be than the console versions, which are LOL freezing up now anyway if you believe the posts on the Rockstar forum.

My guess is that, recently, many and by many I mean many game developers have been trying to persuade people to buy consoles, either the Xbox 360 or PS3, it doesn't matter. Maybe because it's actually harder to develop PC games.

Anyway, quite rough days for PC gamers.

I grew up playing games on PC but stopped because when I buy games now I am never sure if they will work or not on my system. Sometimes, even if my system meets all the requirements, bugs and crashes keep me from enjoying the game fully. Console games have a much better track record in this respect because console developers only have to focus on one system configuration.

Another thing that bothers me about PC games is the sometimes heavy handed DRM (digital rights management). In a way, pirated copies of a game are superior to purchased copies because the DRM is removed. I have had experiences where DRM has made games completely unplayable for me. (For example Sims2 would not let me play unless I removed alcohol120 from my system)

It's an unfortunate state of affairs for PC gaming, and I'm saddened by it, as most of my favorite games were on the PC. But I've had so many bad experiences with PC gaming lately that it's going to take a lot to convince me to go back

PC gaming is always going to have a place - if only that developing games for the PC has the lowest barrier to entry. Anyone with a PC can feasibly make a game for a PC - it's just a matter of software. This is not so for consoles.

Nice read, and sad to see PC gaming decline.

I'm a massive PC gamer. PCs will always be better than consoles because they're just easier to control, you can download stuff and surf the interwebz, the graphics are better, and a host of other things I've already said a billion times.

I am a console gamer and have been from the start. The reason being I didn't grow up with a home computer they were too expensive and since the internet didn't really exist yet there was no reason to get one. The console on the other hand was a far more inexpensive avenue for me if I wanted to play video games. That is probably why I still prefer the console today. I can afford to buy a computer now and have all the goods installed, but whats the point? I still get all my video games fixes from the console and have since the Nintendo. I remember as a kid I would see games that looked cool but were only for PC and thinking man I wish I could play that. Now those days are gone and I for one am glad.

Call me paranoid, but when developers go in cahoots with company's like say "Nvidia the way it's meant to be played" and jack up the recommended video cards for a game. Then yeah the developers are benefiting from the people who are eager to blow money on new hardware for their rig. My example: Crysis, I played that game all the way through on my last rig which was an Athlon 2500 and a radeon x800 pro, as im sure you know, the minimum and recommended specs are WAYYYY above that...

Although I do concur, the only way to shape the market is by supporting the developers you like.

I in fact started as a PC gamer on a 386 (or 486, it was so long ago), it was device that was provided to me by an Uncle so I can do my word processing or things of that nature, yet I used it almost entirely for gaming because I lacked the funds to own a gaming system like an NES.

I began with the King's Quests along with many other point and click adventure games which were amazingly cheap. It seemed like there was a very long period when upgrading wasn't needed. Once PC gaming took on the task of creating more dynamic simulations instead of simple yet engaging titles, that's where the demand for greater hardware started. Like many I found out that I just couldn't keep up, my attitude towards upgrading finally turned negative around 2002.

Of course this would have been forced upon me regardless if not for the constant improvement of the console gaming option. I think it's that overwhelming choice that ultimately hurts PC gaming along with the reasons you stated. It promises games without bottlenecks or add-ons, a very hard to resist offer.

Personally the future of PC gaming for me lies with independent developers that are creating some amazingly unique games which focus more on interaction rather then visuals. (Crayon Physics being an example). Great read

I think eventually the PC and console system will merge even more so than they currently are. Console prices will rise as the tech improves, and PC prices will fall as consoles aquire more and more 'PC exclusive' features....and EA will probably own it all.

It must be a pretty large coffin. It seems as though we've been hammering at it for over a decade.

i havent pirated a PC game since...ever

i have 2 shelves with about 120 PC games on, some old, most new and unless its a completely single player based game, its pointless torrenting it cos then you cant play online. i guess if its an RPG or something like assassins creed then some people might be tempted, but i dont see the point, i buy my hardware so i can play the games i buy, not download illegally, as im sure most other pc gamers do. i do know people though who do download games, and it annoys me cos its because of them that things like this are happening, on the other hand i couldnt give a rats hairy testicles about crytek to be honest, but if a company like blizzard turn away from the pc (which i dont think will ever happen) then that would hurt us a lot....

xanthewolf: You are very right. And I think decisions like this from "big" companies like Crytek will only further limit what's available to us.

kippesd : PC gaming may not die, but I just long for the days when the PC was a trendsetter and a bastion of originality, instead of a type of "gold Edition" for console titles. While I've no doubt the PC GTA IV will be great, there was a time when the releases were concurrent (GTA 1 and 2, I guess. )

Adversary16 : I don't know, is it harder? I'm sure there are more bugs to contend with because of the massive amount of hardware combinations possible, but is the actual creation any more difficult?

edwardocracy : It is a sad fact that anti-piracy usually only screws the legitimate users. I for one have never had many problems with PC games, it's a shame it drove you away.

reckeweg : nice to hear from the other side of the fence! I've stuck around on PC because I need one anyway for the internets and various other serious tasks, and a lot of console games don't interest me. It's good to be able to play some great games on your PC, but I just wish there were more possibilities.

nehtniglet : I wouldn't put such nastiness past them, sure. However, at least it means you get good bundled games with your Gfx cards.

visionary : you're probably right in regards to the independent option (as is grigjd3). I feel the only way to really stay an exclusive PC gamer in this day and age is to either not care about upgrading and take your time getting around to the hot titles, as I do, or blow mountains of cash.

Skullcandy : it's a good thought, bar the EA part. Mainly for me, being a pc gamer.

JLuke360 : but surely not over a decade (that's when Half Life came out). PC Gaming was still very much alive in 2000 and a few years after. It's only the past few years I've noticed the PC section shrinking and being shoved into the dusty corners of stores.

marriage0 : good for you! I have loads of PC games myself as I'm always grabbing some bargain bucket ones ... more than I've played, embarassingly. I take your point about Crytek not mattering, but it's not really the company that's important but rather the message it sends to others. I.E the creator of one of the biggest PC releases of the year decides it won't be focusing on PC in the future. That's a hit to us all no matter what you think of Crytek. Blizzard games, fortunately, thrive on mouse control.

PC gaming died out in the mid-90's to be honest. If it wasn't for Unreal Tournament, everyone would have thrown out their Windows 98 platforms after getting bored of StarCraft (Yes it is a faint possibility). PC gaming nowadays is overhyped, and there are elitists out there who will shun you for even thinking about a console.

In unbiased truth, PC gaming sucks. Console games are not only superior in terms of security and playability but in accessibility as well. PC gamers have to shell out hundreds of dollars just so they can upgrade their computers so they can play another uninspired overhyped PC game (I'm looking RIGHT AT YOU Half-Life 2!) Meanwhile, you have console games with graphics that are just as crisp as the PC has to offer, but any person who properly uses their brain is going to get the console version because $50 is alot cheaper for a game than the $200 it is for a graphics card and Intel core whatever-the-hell-they-got-now processor. Techno-boy over there is working overtime for the money he needs while I'm playing the same game at home at that very moment because I could come home early from work because I had enough money (That or it was a christmas gift).

The only good thing PC's are good for anymore in MMO RPGs, and people who play those are bashed every day for not having a social life (Those people are just as wrong by the way because they're the exact same frat boys with over 200,000 points in gamerscores) so why bother? The funny thing is that now games are arriving on consoles before they arrive on the PC, take Gears of War for example. Sure I can fight the Brumak in the PC version, but hey I think I'll wait for the sequel where I'm likely gonna fight them in tens and twenties. Mass Effect also did the same thing, which is even stranger because it looks and feels like the kind of game you'd find on PC first. This is indeed a bold new phenomenon unfolding at the expense of PC gaming slowly rotting away.

So perhaps in the future, all games will be on consoles, some even more powerful that PCs we've got now...or ever for that matter because there will be us having online deathmatches on our consoles, hopefully they'll come up with a way to ban devil children and mysogenic frat boys from matches wher normal people congregate. Meanwhile, Mr. ATI in the corner will have to beg his parents for money so he can play games on his no-doubt soon to be obsolete machine that we're already playing on consoles. Console gaming FTW N00bz.

I've never pirated a game, I just don't have the good enough specs to get Crysis or all the amazing games that I'd rather get on the PC (Mass Effect, other FPSs, etc.). But I've got a little PC games revival. I recently got:

Deus Ex

Freedom Fighters

SWAT 4

I'm just amazed my puny unmodified PC can handle these brilliant games. I prefer the PC as a gaming console, because it's a lot faster and more convenient (aside from having right specs) than having to wait 2-3 minutes to put a CD into a console, turn on TV, wait for game to load up, and get to start screen. On the PC, I just press Esc quickly, and I'm on the start screen, while even some games don't allow you to skip the intro by pressing Start on your controller on consoles

Great editorial, and I'm really sad that developers pay more attention that they should make more sales rather than make great games. At least to me, even selling 200,000 copies of a game sounds like great news, but hey companies always want exorbitant amounts of profit above all that.

Nail in the coffin? No. A strong blow? Perhaps. As a PC gamer, I wanted to flame you, but you listen to Radiohead, so I can't do that.

Well with Vista isnt it a lot harder to download games? Cos' it conflicts with Windows Live or something?

I'm a hardcore PC gamer and I know that PC gaming won't die anytime soon. While the consoles are well on their way of raping the gaming culture to death, the PC community keeps getting better. This is mainly because most of the noobs and kiddies have migrated to the consoles. The only bad thing about this is that some developers will make console exclusives or delay the PC versions.

Oh, and to all the people saying that console gaming is cheaper, its not. My current setup consists of a $250 22" Samsung Widescreen and a $750 "budget" gaming PC that I build myself and offers similair performance to the current consoles. Lets say that you buy a $400 X360 Elite and a decent HD Ready flatscreen you'll end up spending more. Sure you can buy pimped out rigs if you want to increase the size of your e-penis, but with a modest setup like mine, you'll have similair, if not better, performance. Plus you can do things like watching videos in normal codecs and not just the ones Sony or Microsoft aproves of. And you can augment your games with dozens of community created maps and mods.


"So perhaps in the future, all games will be on consoles, some even more powerful that PCs we've got now..."

Lulz, you have no understanding how things work do you? The hardware in consoles is dramatically inferior to that of the average gaming PC. The only reason that games run so well on consoles, is because devs optimize 'em more than for the PC. They only have to optimize the engine to 1 card and 1 processor for the consoles, while they have to optimize it for dozens of cards for the PC.

PC gaming is not going to die any time soon, there are a lot of games that eventually made their way to the PC, it's just the fact that every day there is new technology's being discovered and I'm just afraid that in the next 2 years am going to have to ditch this new PC of mine and have to spend another $ 600 on a new one.

In my opinion Crytek didn't do this for nothing, Crytek felt they had to move on and continue making games for both PCs and consoles.

I live in a country where piracy is everywhere, now i don't know how it goes in the US, but there are stores scattered all around the capital selling illegal copies, and the reason it's happening is because people can't afford the original, only very high class people can buy these games or consoles, you know how much dose a 360 Elite costs here? It's about $ 845, and that my friend is a lot of money to spend on a console.

Draconoxious : again with the mid-90s. That was the golden age, well apart from the patch trouble. PC gaming was in full health until these past few years. Frankly I'm a bit puzzled as to why you think PC games are uninspired, overhyped. How many genres are there on consoles? Three. FPS, 3d person action game (or fps), and RPG. That's pretty much it, besides a bunch of oddities like Katamari. How are games like Saint's Row and Crackdown in any way inspired? I'm not saying they're copies of PC games (GTA, as always, premieres on consoles), but consoles aren't exactly the go-to place for originality.

organic_machine : I'll admit I may have been a bit melodramatic there, and I don't want to make people think I'm giving up on the PC, I just skipped a few years ahead and was horrified by what could be. Fine fine, Karma Police arrest me.

AndyWilliams24 : I have no idea. I'm assuming they've pirated that too, so probably not. Lots of games don't require Live, I played through Halo 2 in its entirety without it as I couldn't be bothered going through their registration for a bunch of (pointless to me) achievements.

scratzin : I am very much on your side for this. I also have a decent setup without having spent much (okay, the gfx is abysmal, but I'll fix that eventually) and a bit of patience and shopping around will get you some great PC setups. Anyone buying a card when it comes out is a sap. Plus your e-penis comment made my day. I'll have to remember that. Bravo!

red_x2004 : I don't think it'll die out, just become second fiddle. Which is quite a shame. I don't mind waiting for the games to make their way over, I'd just like it if there were more innovative games like there were back in, say, the late 90s. I've lived in Prague and I can relate to your trouble wiht piracy. I know everything there is, for the most part, remarkably overpriced. However, when I left they were starting on some translated special cheaper versions, so perhaps this'll make its way over to you eventually.

Incidentally, I'm quite happy that this has turned into a debate on the situation of the PC rather than a mud-slinging match about piracy. Great responses everyone!

Good editorial, your right about people's view of "I deserve this because..." or "I paid X amount of money to company A, so I deserve something free from company B", it's just stupid. I don't think PC gaming will be seeing a headstone and a big hole in the ground any time soon but it's not surprising gaming has become so console-centred despite having the supposed "do everything" machine sitting on a desk in our bedrooms or that people are actually pirating PC titles. But I encourage anyone who is pirating to stop so that the world of PC gaming may be at least somewhat recovered .

Yes. Long live proper gaming indeed. I think we can all agree on that.

digi_matrix: those are some of my favourite games of all time right there (well, except Freedom Fighters, which I enjoyed though), and I applaud you for getting into them even now. How about we play some coop SWAT 4 some time?

I started PC gaming 20 years ago with an IBM 086 XT, and never had a console until last summer. I know a good deal about hardware and have built my PC and upgraded it several times. So you'd think I'd be saying PC gaming is just fine, but I'm not.

For me PC gaming has stopped being fun, and that is the most important thing in gaming. I've got sick and tired of having to check compatibility, search for new drivers, look for hotfixes to bugs, and deal with the odorous copy protection imposed on so many titles.

Also some of the arguments that used to keep me PC gaming don't really work any more. PC's have better graphics, but since I play nearly all games at 1280x1024, and current consoles can do 1280x720 (720p) or 1960x1080 (1080p) the difference isn't really that great. So what if a game like Crysis can be run at x1600 if you don't have a gfx card or monitor capable of displaying it.

I know that when I buy a console game a lot of effort has gone into getting the most from the hardware. The last few years of PC gaming have produced a stream of poorly optimised games that are real system hogs. While all games have their share of bugs, the PC is the only system where a company can release a game in any state they feel like without having gone through another company (MS, Sony, Nintendo) to check the quality.

Piracy is usually the first thing companies jump on to blame poor sales. Crytek are the latest to blame piracy, but the reality is they chose to make their game only run well on the latest and greatest PC's, rather than the 2-3 year old PC's that lots of people have. Release a game that only a small number of people can play, and you get poor sales.

Copy protection on the other hand has become increasingly onerous on the consumer. Most PC gamers know the fuss over StarForce so no need to repeat that here. Bioshock required online activation, but the servers went down at launch and it took me 5 days before I could start playing. Bet on Soldier refused to recognise the genuine disc, forcing me to download cracked files to make my legit game work.

The PC is good for niche games, but sadly a lot of these companies are small and tend to fail within a few years, even if they make successful games. Recent GS news articles are enough to show half a dozen closures in the last 4 months. The PC is also what I prefer to play RTS and FPS games, but that is because I can use mouse and keyboard. If a console starts to support this, it is just one less argument the PC has.

So I come back around to what I said earlier - PC gaming has stopped being fun for me. I have a big collection of games I enjoy for PC, but I have unknowingly switched from being a hardcore PC gamer, to a mainly console gamer.

Great blog. I completely agree with just about everything you said. I don't PC game anymore because my PC sucks and am waiting until I get a better job to buy a knew one. Usually, with PC games the price comes down within a few months. Another plus is patchs. I wish EA would fix their poor version of Madden with patches. Then I could stomach to play it.

I'm not saying that I could wear a white wedding dress (so to speak) but I am only too happy to support the developers and buy a (or several) copies of a game if it's well made and good. I've bought games that I didn't even own the console for, just to support the developers (MGS3: Subsistence for example). I don't believe PC gaming will ever die, but I do believe this is the beginning of a trend of ports. As I see it now, each console has it's franchises that I will own the console exclusively for. Nintendo has Mario, Sony has Metal Gear, Microsoft has Halo (I only picked one franchise, there are several). I can see PC becoming somewhat closer to this idea, although I really hope otherwise. I just had an argument yesterday about my friend being a pirate, because he was whining the price of games is too high. He doesn't understand or care that he's the cause (or part of it), only that he can get free games. Today I showed him that same news article to reaffirm my point, and he simply stated that Crytek is whining, that they make enough and should shut up. This sort of thing really bothers me, especially when it's someone you are friends with and have some influence over, yet you still can't even make them see the small point that is piracy = bad. If you're going to do it, at LEAST admit it, don't be in denial about it. I'm one of the few that is on the cusp of hardware, mostly because I get wholesale prices; so I was playing Crysis the day it came out on it's highest settings and enjoying all the eye candy, but the percentage of people like me that dump all kinds of money into hardware (I don't do it too often, guitars are more my vice) is so small compared to the average computer out there that would not have a chance of running Crysis on high, much less highest settings. It's a shame, but it's no wonder their sales weren't as high as console games. They had to expect that though, you'd think. Anyway this has become a long winded comment, so I'll end it here, but interesting topic and I'm glad to see it's not a flame war too.

As an avid PC gamer, the one huge, no absolutely massive, advantage over the consoles is backwards compatibility. At the moment, I have C&C3, Half life 2, Oblivion, as well as Final fantasy VII, Monkey Island 3 and a whole host of retro games, many of which can be picked up for very little money, but are fantastic games with hours of gameplay... all I had to do was look back slightly, and pick up all the games I'd missed out on over the years, which all can be played on my one system. Bliss.

Crysis didn't sell because you need a supercomputer to play it. Unfortunately, most people don't have multi-thousand dollar computers with humongous graphics cards, quad-core processors, and liquid-cooled motherboards. Crysis is more of a tech demo than an actual game if you consider the outrageous specs you need to frikin run it. An xbox 360 would explode the second you put a ported version of Crysis in its disc tray.

Ah yes, the classic "PC gaming is dying" argument. I don't mean to be aggressive (please don't interpret it as such), but people have been claiming that PC gaming has been dying for practically the past decade. Is PC gaming expensive? Perhaps if you make unwise choices as a consumer and don't do the proper research. Are hardware demands grueling? Sometimes, but that's when sites like tweakguides.com come in. One thing you have to consider about PC gaming sales is that most developer rely on NPD sales, which frankly, are about as accurate as me predicting the weather based on my sense of smell alone. NPD sales don't include digital sales. I don't know if you've used digital distribution methods anytime recently, but millions of users using Steam and other methods have. PC gaming isn't dying, it's just having a mid-life crisis.

I have to agree with the views of stardock and now Chris taylor. PC gaming in its current form is dying and a new superior one will emerge. Eliminating DRM, Great support with updates to encourage users to purchase the product.

Just looking at World of Warcraft makes me confident that PC gaming isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and for me at least that's enough reassurance to keep my gaming focus firmly set on the PC.

If all else fails, we still have UT2004, right?

Name one good mmo on a console? Pc will be around forever and will always be better for rpg's, first person shooters and mmo's the only thing that would put the final nail in the coffin would be for consoles to have A more system ram B. a true keyboard and mouse interface..C upgradeability..and this will never happen =)

Very, very true! It's funny that people justify piracy with Crysis, because they're the same people saying that they can't afford to run it, yet they probably pirate every other game out there, and I don't suppose that EVERY PC game is as demanding as Crysis or people wouldn't be whining about it. Also, some people are just plain cheap. Someone I know said they justified piracy because the games themselves are too expensive! These aren't even PC games, mind you, we are talking about an age in which people hack psps, use flash cards with their DS, in addition to torrents for PC and console games. I hate how people who pirate say that games aren't worth their money, and that they have lives and other things to better spend their money on - it's not like people don't invest years of their lives and thousands of dollars into producing the things we play. It's just plain robbery is what it is, and it's a damned shame that so many people are fine with it. If people would just stop stealing, maybe we wouldn't have to deal with PC devs ditching the system, and even stop the ones that don't from enforcing things like Bioshock's silly copy-protection. People need to remember that piracy doesn't only affect PC gamers - it effects every gamer who is decent enough to spend money on games. It's silly, too, because the people who leaked GTA IV even encouraged people to buy the game when it came out. Not that Take Two won't be making a profit, but I know a couple of people who pirated it anyway.

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I personally think the PC will never die- cause there are still a few developers who make high-quality exclusives for it. (Blizzard being the primary example) The PC is also still the king of a few genres- most notably with MMOs and Strategy games (The 360 is trying to compete here with some PC strategy ports- but I don't see it ever beating the PC in the strategy genre). I don't agree with "The PC is better than the consoles" argument either though. The consoles easily match- if not outright beat- the PC in several genres now- such as platforming and action adventure games. So ultimately- I think which side you go with depends on which genres you prefer.

By the way, Draconoxious, I totally agree with you that Half-life 2 is way overrated. But I'd be going off topic to express my reasoning- so I'll save you guys a wall of text that I've used several times already...

Totally agree. Nuff said. Loving these quotes. I lol'd so hard at the second. "It's high time people started being responsible about what they deserve and stopped seeing the world as one big vortex centred on themselves." -Nodham
"My Rig: Wii" -Nodham